Giving Up On You
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: ****Another song inspired fic, this one 'Say Something' by A Great Big World. It's been over a year now and all John want's is for Sherlock to say something to let him know that he's still alive - because it's been too long, surely if Sherlock is still alive he would have heard something by now, and Doctor John Watson is finally beginning to give up on Sherlock Holmes. PURE ANGST!


**Giving Up On You**

John looked over at the photograph on the mantelpiece and smiled sadly. The picture in question was one of him and Sherlock Holmes – his best friend looking as uncomfortable as ever in the now 'trade mark' deerstalker he'd despised so greatly. It was one of the last photos taken of the two of them before Sherlock's death, and there were still days when John couldn't bring himself to look at it. In the eighteen months since his best friend had taken his own life John had not been able to let go of the hope that it had all been a hoax, just a 'magic trick', that one day Sherlock Holmes would walk back into his life with a smile upon his face, acting as though the past few months had never happened, and expecting instant forgiveness. John would be angry with him of course, but in time he knew that he would give it all the same.

As the months had dragged slowly by however, and the empty void in John's heart had served as a constant reminder that his daily prayers had gone unanswered, Doctor John Watson had started to give up on his friend Sherlock Holmes.

He'd have followed Sherlock anywhere, to the ends of the earth if he'd have only asked. Whatever had prompted the man to take the course he'd taken, whatever he may have been thinking during his last final moments, he hadn't had to take his own life.

He'd never lost his faith in his best friend – no, that he would never do – but as time had passed him slowly by he'd come to the terrible conclusion that he would never see Sherlock again. He'd spent so many lonely evenings screaming angrily at that very photograph upon the mantelpiece. Screaming for Sherlock to say something – to give him some sign that he was still alive – that as the days turned into weeks, those weeks into months, and finally a year had come and gone John had started to give up on Sherlock.

The Doctor had never felt so small as he did now without his best friend by his side. Life with Sherlock had been a whirlwind, a constant roller-coaster of ups and downs which had made John's life worth living again. He'd thought that after over a year of sharing a flat with the man he'd come to know the world's only consulting detective pretty well – that he'd got a pretty accurate measure of the man who'd rather rapidly become the best damn friend Doctor John Watson had ever had.

The Sherlock Holmes he'd known had been emotionally distant, often cold but without ever meaning to be, ever resourceful, and logical. His life had been dominated by fact not fantasy. To all outside eyes Sherlock had been a man completely incapable of understanding other people's emotions, but John had known that just because that may well have been the case it hadn't necessarily meant that he'd been incapable of feeling emotion too.

John was only now beginning to realise that he hadn't known anything at all – for just as he had had to learn not to take Sherlock's lack of sentiment personally, Sherlock had had to learn how to love, how to more adequately express his emotions, and how to show people that he really had cared. He thought about his friend's reaction to the news of Irene Adler's death, the fear in his eyes upon the evening he thought that he'd seen the Hound upon the moors of Baskerville, and of the kiss he had shared with Molly the night of their very first Christmas party. Sherlock had made an effort to change, to make friends, and to integrate himself into society – albeit with only a very small and select group of people.

It was only now that John was beginning to notice the baby steps Sherlock had taken – and that broke his heart all the more.

"I'm sorry that I left you." He whispered as he starred into the still, dead eyes of the man in the photograph. "I'm sorry that I didn't get to you in time. I let you down Sherlock." He sniffed. "I loved you… I will always love you. You were my best friend… but I'm saying goodbye."

He reached out one shaking hand to gently stroke the picture frame, and hiccoughed as he swallowed hard to dispel the lump in his throat and the swelling of long suppressed emotion inside his chest. He had promised himself that he wouldn't put himself through this again.

"Please Sherlock…" He sighed, "I'm so sick of praying to a God that I'm not even sure I believe in anymore, but I'm asking this of you one last time. Please, Don't. Be. Dead. Just do something, say something to let me know that you're still out there, somewhere. Don't let me give up on the only man I've ever believed in…

Because I'm giving up on you."


End file.
